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Saturday, October 18, 2014

Zen Fibbing & Sewing

I found a kids' battery-operated sewing machine at the Thrift Store yesterday, so now we can do safe and simple and slow sewing projects at work.We have a lot of donated scraps of fabric, perfect for quilting. When I suggested to the residents that we could make a collective quilt, one woman said we should make a crazy quilt. Yes, how perfect: a demented quilt!I brought up a big pile of scraps to fold, which people really enjoyed. I relate to the enjoyment of sorting and folding that people with Alzheimer's commonly have.Here we are. Except for mine, I blurred the faces for privacy, but you get the feel, and you can see the little white and pink sewing machine in the center of the table.

When the fabric was mostly folded, I took the pieces into the hall, shook them out, and brought them back in to be folded again. "Therapeutic fibbing," that trick is called. It feels a little weird at first, but it so obviously facilitates ongoing comfort and satisfaction, like facilitating a Zen state---all enjoyment of the process, with no concern for the outcome. I'm a little surprised to find that being around the residents is rather restful (though being in charge is a lot of work). When I leave work and see the rest of us racing around, engaged in getting and spending, really, I do rather wonder who is wasting their powers...NOT to romanticize dementia: the people I work with are in a Zen-like state––sometimes––not by choice but because their brains are dying.

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Quote of the Moment

“We are not angels, we are merely sophisticated apes. Yet we feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, craving transcendence and all the time trying to spread our wings and fly off, and it’s really a very odd predicament to be in, if you think about it.”